


Up and Down

by akire_yta



Series: prompt ficlets [577]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, hypothetical post-everything, so minor spoilers for aired series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 10:56:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16135799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: Anonymous askedFor the tropes meme, do you wrote The Dragon Prince? If so, can I have 63: Everybody Knows/Mistaken for Couple and 58: Accidental Eavesdropping please?





	Up and Down

The General’s horse gallops into the courtyard, shoed hooves loud on the cobbles as she bolts seemingly right for the wall.  The stablehands are already running to catch and corral, but the General hauls up her mount and slides from the saddle in one motion.  She doesn’t pause as she tosses the reins over, still moving forward to the stairs, the door, the secret passage and the dungeon that they found.

The General doesn’t trust magic; it is no secret.  

They’re there to ensure the mages brought in to dismantle and disarm the magic stored here don’t try to pocket some precious little trinket.  They’re ranged along the corridor, and the word precedes her charge like a breeze:  _here comes the General._

They snap to attention as she passes, and don’t turn their heads after she’s gone.

It’s not them she’s here to see, though no-one wants to distract her from her mission.

The three guards at the base of the stairs are old soldiers, grizzled veterans who used to gently tease their officers into being soldiers worth following, back in the day.  They’re not teasing now; instead they keep a watchful silence of all who come and go by the Lieutenant sat at the base of the stairs.

He’d been told to go up, see sky, breathe fresh air, but Gren seems loathe to leave, drifting mere feet from where he’d been shackled to the wall.  He’s sat on the bottom step, rubbing his wrists, eyes on the mages being shadowed by men he knows as they strip all the shelves bare and leave only shadows behind.

He doesn’t even blink at the sound of his General clattering down the stairs, for all the soldiers all snap to attention. He stays seated as she runs her hands over his shoulders, forces his chin up to look at her.

His fingers sketch a shape in the air. She gives him a look, cocked head and disbelieving.  “I said I’m  _fine_ ,” he said, fingers reshaping the ghost of the words by habit.

All her soldiers know some of the finger shapes, though none are as fluent as Gren for all they’ve seen her hands move in every mood and all weathers.  Whatever she sketches in the air has him chuckling.  “I’m an officer.  We are honour-bound to tell the truth.”

The guards barely breath as their General bobs slightly, a silent laugh.  They freeze entirely as Gren, their Lieutenant, darts his hands up and out to capture her hands.  “Amaya,” he whispers, only audible at all for the deathly silence of the dungeon.  He says her name slowly, the shape of each syllable clear on his lips.  “I’m fine.”

She pulls him into a hug, his soft shirt catching and snagging on the lines of her armour.  His fingers curl around the plates as if he could reach through to the woman below by sheer force of will.

The guards keep their eyes on the wall as she pulls back and Gren brushes her cheek.  They hear her rise to stand, and when one dares a glimpse, Gren is on his feet too.  

Her fingers flick and flash.  “Yes,” Gren agrees, voice stern but smiling.  Gren without his smile was too disorientating to acknowledge, but now the dungeon felt warmer, less like a black hole and more like another room in the castle.  “Our soldiers are good at standing around gawking.”

Everyone else in the room felt their shoulders roll back, chest out under her warm and watchful gaze.  She gestured for Gren, another flash of fingers.  “The General says, as you were,” Gren tells them and follows his General up into daylight.


End file.
